This was the new home of Kenric and Edith, now by the good offices of the old curate of Bowness made man and wife; and here, with the good old mother nodding and knitting by the hearth, and two stout boys, Kenric's varlets, to tend the hounds and hawks, and to do the offices of the small hill farm, they dwelt as happy as the day; he occupying the responsible position of head-forester of upper Kentdale, and warder of the cotters, shepherds, and verdurers, whose cottages were scattered in the woods and over the hill-sides, and both secure in the favor of their lovely lady, and proud of the confidence of their lord.
CHAPTER XV.
THE OLD HOME.
"Your knight for his lady pricks forth in career,
And is brought home at even-song, pricked through with a spear."
Ivanhoe.
That was a dark day for Eadwulf, on which the train of Sir Yvo de Taillebois departed from the tower of Waltheofstow; and thenceforth the discontented, dark-spirited man became darker, more morose and gloomy, until his temper had got to such a pass that he was shunned and avoided by every one, even of his own fellows.
It is true, that in the condition of slavery, in the being one of a despised and a detested caste, in being compelled to labor for the benefit of others than himself, in the being liable at any moment to be sold, together with the glebe to which he is attached for life, like the ox or ass with which he toils as a companion, there is not much to promote contentedness, to foster a quiet, placable, and gentle disposition, to render any man more just, or grateful, or forbearing to his fellows. Least of all is it so, where there is in the slave just enough of knowledge, of civilization, of higher nurture, to enable him to desire freedom in the abstract, to pine for it as a right denied, and to hate those by whom he is deprived of it, without comprehending its real value, or in the least appreciating either the privileges which it confers or the duties which it imposes on the freeman—least of all, when the man has from nature received a churlish, gloomy, sullen temperament, such as would be likely to make to itself a fanciful adversity out of actual prosperity, to resent all opposition to its slightest wish as an injury, and to envy, almost to the length of hating, every one more fortunate than himself.
It may, however, as all other conditions of inferiority, of sorrow, or of suffering, be rendered lighter and more tolerable by the mode of bearing it. Not that one would desire to see any man, whether reduced by circumstances to that condition, or held to it from his birth, so far reduced to a tame and senseless submission as to accept it as his natural state, or to endure it apathetically, without an effort at raising himself to his proper position in the scale of humanity and nature.
It is perfectly consistent with the utmost abhorrence of the condition, and the most thorough determination to escape from it by any means lawful to a Christian, to endure what is unavoidable, and to do that which must be done, bravely, patiently, well, and therefore nobly.
But it was not in the nature of Eadwulf to take either part. His rugged, stubborn, animal character, was as little capable of forming any scheme for his own prospective liberation, to which energy, and a firm, far-reaching will, should be the agents, as it was either to endure patiently or to labor well.